Slow websites cost businesses thousands per year

Poor website performance is costing businesses thousands per year – as much as 15% of annual revenue.

A survey of 206 businesses with an average annual revenue of $119,000 by Liquid Web found they lose an average of $20,172 per year because of poor website performance.

More than one in ten said they’d experienced website downtime in the last year, with more than a third saying they’d experienced slow website load times in the last year.

Two-thirds of the firms said they’d lost revenue as a result, and more than half said they’d missed key growth opportunities. More than four in ten said they’d suffered damage to their brand’s reputation, and a third saw an increase in customer complaints.

On average, business owners reported losing 7.5% of their traffic because of poor website performance. One in ten said their bounce rates – where a user views only one page on a website and then leaves – were over 50%.

One in eight business owners reported losing revenue every month due to poor website performance. And 13% of ecommerce businesses reported revenue losses equating to an 11% annual shortfall on average.

And, warns Liquid Web, for companies that rely heavily on seasonal sales or new product releases, the impact of these performance issues on high-traffic days is probably much greater.

“Many business owners don’t realize how much slow performance impacts customer experience,” said Tiffany Bridge, product manager, ecommerce applications, security, and professional services at Liquid Web.

“When pages take too long to load, customers leave – sometimes for good – resulting in lost sales and damaged trust. Faster hosting provides a rock-solid foundation for better website performance, especially on a platform that includes site speed features automatically.”

Beyond profitability, said Liquid Web, some business leaders also frequently worried that poor website performance could damage their brand’s reputation or lead to missed business opportunities. More than a quarter felt that poor performance caused them to lag behind rivals with more reliable websites.

When trying to improve their websites, the research found, 38% have optimized images and code; 32% have reduced third-party scripts or plugins and 27% said they had switched to a high-performance hosting provider.

Nearly one in five has implemented caching strategies, and one in ten has added a content delivery network (CDN.)

The biggest obstacle to improvements, the research found, is cost – an issue for half the companies – with a lack of technical experience cited by 30%. Other barriers to upgrades include a lack of time, an unclear return on investment (ROI), and a general lack of resources.